At cash management companies which handle stocking and maintenance of ATMs, everyone is working overtime
Highlights
- Cash crunch across India after ban on 500 and 1,000 rupee notes
- ATMs running out of notes quickly, many not working
- ATMs need different trays to dispense new-sized bills
At a time when most people are desperate to get cash, Dilip Singh is surrounded by it. Heaps and heaps of it. Mr Singh works at a large cash management company in Okhla, which handles the stocking and maintenance of ATMs for private and state-run banks.
When we meet Mr Singh at his office, a vault manager incharge of processing cash, he and his eight member team are busy segregating cash as per ATM distribution routes. "I have only been home for four hours in the last eight days," he said about his extended shifts after the government cancelled the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes last week. "I have to continue working, to be loyal to my company and country in these difficult times."
The 46-year-old is hardly exempt from the cash crunch that India is grappling with. He has not been able to pay his daughter's coaching class fee because the teacher doesn't accept cheques. His wife says that shopping at grocery stores which accept cards is much more expensive than the small kirana shop that is the family's staple.
At his office, there are plenty of others who are working overtime. "If you get tired, you catch a nap in the changing room," said Ram Prasad Verma, age 64. The company has installed a make-shift snack bar on the roof that offers tea and coffee to exhausted employees.
Around the country, banks are struggling to cope with the lakhs of people who arrive every day to collect the new high-denomination currency. ATMs are being reconfigured because the new 500 and 2,000 rupee notes need to be stocked in larger trays than the now-outlawed bills. "Today is the third consecutive day I have queued, but the ATM has run dry," complained Pinku Trivedi, a factory worker.
Banks and the government have reassured that there is no shortage of the new bills which are being dispatched to banks every day and that people must not panic or hoard money.
Rituraj Sinha, President, Cash Logistics Association of India, told NDTV that if the current pace of ATM re-calibration and replenishment of notes continues, the situation should improve dramatically within a week.